marc smith

That's assuming that the worm hole to a distant galaxy, far, far away hasn't opened up at the precise moment and swallowed up your small item.

I spend many happy hours looking for whatever I have dropped, before accepting that the carpet monster has won again.

Having watched one of those police chase programmes on the telly last night, what you need is a stick, say about 3ft long, with a piece of gaffer tape at the business end.  Its certainly good for retrieving small bags of drugs dropped down a roadside drain by a suspect...